Community Engagement

Supporting community development is one of the key objectives for our campus in Burnley. We do this through offering a complete package of University courses in Community Leadership from a University Certificate to a master's degree. But there is so much more to UCLan Burnley community development than this.

Centre for Volunteering and Community Leadership

UCLan’s award-winning Centre for Volunteering and Community Leadership (CVCL) is noted for its work in developing community cohesion and active citizenship projects. The Centre works across a number of key areas, with students looking to gain an advantage through our accredited volunteering opportunities. Voluntary, community and faith organisations looking to collaborate on projects, training, CPD or student volunteers and individuals with a passion for making a lasting impact on society whilst developing highly transferrable skills for education, employment and life on our undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Our teaching and learning is underpinned by the educational philosophy of Paulo Freire. Extra-curricular accreditation and short CPD courses are also available through the Institute of Leadership and Management and opportunities for further training and development on offer through our collaboration with the internationally recognised Freire Institute.

CVCL aims to engage, empower and enable everyone who comes into contact with our work in local, national and international settings.

Junior University

The Junior University aims to raise awareness of and aspiration to go to University amongst 13/14 year olds in Burnley and Pendle. It started at UCLan Burnley in 2010 with an initial cohort of 50 young people from Burnley and Pendle and aims to have 150 in Burnley/Pendle and 150 in Preston by 2013/14.

Princes School of Traditional Arts

Our work with the Princes School of Traditional Arts (PSTA) has supported people from the local community to develop skills in fashion and textiles and has led to the PSTA brand ‘Handmade in Burnley’ and a workers co-operative based at UCLan Burnley developing top quality textile products.

Handmade in Burnley

The Princes School of Traditional Arts runs a series of workshops each year at UCLan Burnley to support people from the local community. Learning about design in the context of diverse cultures and to develop traditional fine craft skills. These workshops have resulted in a workers co-operative producing high quality products labelled ‘Handmade in Burnley’.

UCLan Burnley has an office-based business incubation space for graduates and the community who wish to start their own business. In the summer of 2012 we developed this further by adding a Creative Business Incubation Space, in particular for our own fashion graduates and the ‘Handmade in Burnley’ workers co-operative.

Burnley Education Trust

UCLan Burnley is one of the trustees for the Burnley Education Trust, supporting raising aspiration and attainment by students at the fantastic Burnley secondary schools.

Since 2009, GCSE results at the Burnley schools have improved dramatically, getting some of the most improved results of anywhere in the UK; a testament to the hard work and dedication of the students, their teachers and with the support of parents and guardians.

Employability

The vision for the Campus is to support local students to get a first class university qualification to enable them to develop their careers in the knowledge economy in the region and as part of the local community. All of our courses are vocational and aimed at the needs of the local economy. We have many activities on campus to support employability of our students and the wider community.

We hosted the Business in the Community Give and Gain day in both 2011 and 2012. This enabled school children from Burnley and Pendle to visit UCLan Burnley and get a flavour of working in advanced manufacturing, understanding STEM skills (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and maximising their employability.

We worked with Aircelle and other employers in the region to put on the first Work Inspiration Day to inspire the young people of Burnley with the wide range of careers available in the knowledge economy.

We are working with the Princes Trust to run their University Millionmakers scheme at UCLan Burnley. The pilot scheme was delivered in 2012/13 with two teams of five and six UCLan Burnley students aiming to start a business with seed funding from the Trust and deliver a profit for the Princes Trust by the end of February 2013.